Seattle Schools Says It Wants More Diversity in School Staffing

We've heard this for a long time - that Seattle Schools' staffing at schools doesn't reflect the racial diversity of the district. 

There has been a call for more diversity in teaching because kids need to see adults that look like them; if not in their own classroom, at least reflected in other classrooms and in administrative/school staff.  

It's a district that is majority minority so that certainly would make sense. 

I will note that I find that one of the biggest disparities is that there are more women teaching at the elementary level than men. If I was to say one thing that should be given attention, it's finding more male elementary teachers (and hopefully, men of color.)

But school leadership sets the tone.  I noticed something in the district's recent announcements of new principal hires which led me to try to look at those principal assignments over this school year.

The district's student population breaks down like this:

46% White

15% Hispanic

14% Black

13% Multi-racial

12% Asian

 1% Pacific Islander

 1% Native American

Seattle itself looks like this:

60% White

17% Asian

 8% Hispanic

8.2% Multi-racial

6.5% Black

Clearly, not the same. 

So you might reasonably think the district is making an effort to find more principals of color especially with how close the numbers are for Black, Hispanic, and Asian student populations and hire (as much as possible) accordingly.

But that isn't how it has played out in hiring over this last school year.

I looked at principal announcements at the district's website as well as the Personnel Reports that are part of every Board meeting. It appears that some hires may be current principals who have been moved to another school but most are new hires. I found photos for most and did my best to cross-reference that with other photos but this is what appears to be the case. 

There were 15 White principals, 9 Black principals, 1 Asian principal, and 1 Hispanic principal.

There are fewer Asian and Hispanic principal candidates applying? Fewer qualified ones in both categories? 

I wonder if I checked the entire principal pool what that might look like. 

I am puzzled.